For

Against

Everyone’s heard of Tekken whether you’ve played it or not. It’s right up there with Tomb Raider in the name recognition stakes.

Despite not being as quite as good as Sega’s Virtua Fighter, Tekken’s stunning looks and hectic one on one action always seemed to give it a victory on points.

Or was it the lovely Nina Williams and the tiny farting dinosaur secret character?

Plus, who needs the carefully timed strokes of Virtua Fighter and Street Fighter when you can get down to a good ol’ button mashing session. If in doubt, just hit X, triangle and square repeatedly.

Dark Revolution is Tekken’s first outing on PSP. All we can say is, about time too. We’ve been after a decent hand held fighter for yonks.

Let’s cut to the action shall we? Tekken Dark Resurrection is a very, very good game.

First off, you’re looking at one of the best looking games made for the PSP so far. Each of the 34 characters has been lovingly transported to Sony’s little brother and all look just as gorgeous as they appear on the big screen in our living room.

There’s a few rough edges in the backdrops of course, but that’s not too important when your eyes are trained solidly on the fighting action in the foreground.

They’ve even dealt with a PSP bugbear of ours – the overly long loading times. Oh yes, T:DR is up there with the best.

The same old fighting action remains and it feels as solid as ever. Each punch, each toss in the air and each brutal landing face first onto paved cobbles feels as harsh and painful as in previous versions.

This time round we’re greeted with a slightly less impressive control method, with a PSP D-pad that simply isn’t made for beat ‘em up combos and diagonals. You’ll get used to it, but it’s half an hour’s worth of work before you’re totally ready to dish out proper beatings.

And beatings they shall have, starting with the arcade mode where you thrash each character in turn to unlock a weird and wonderful ending movie, through to the ad hoc multiplayer mode where two PSP owners take each other on in hardcore bouts.

Verdict

Sadly, there’s no true online mode, so taking on a pal more than a few metres away isn’t going to be possible. When is Sony going to sort online out? There’s nothing we’d like more than to beat Cletus in the good ol’ state of Texas.

As a handheld fighter, it’s the best out there by a huge distance. If the D-pad was up to par then this would be a certified classic, but instead it’s one that you’ll love. Time to update the hardware, eh Sony?